Microfluidics involves micro-scale systems and devices that handle small volumes of fluids. Because microfluidics can accurately and reproducibly control and dispense small fluid volumes, in particular volumes less than 1 μL, application of microfluidics has the capability to provide significant cost-savings in technical fields such as, for example, chemical, biochemical, and biological sample processing. The use of microfluidics technology can reduce cycle times, shorten time-to-results, and increase throughput in various applications. Furthermore, incorporation of microfluidics technology can enhance system integration and automation in various applications.
Given the relatively small dimensions of microfluidic devices or components thereof, microfluidic systems involve construction and design that differs from macro-scale fluidic systems. Simple scaling down in size of macro-scale devices to a microfluidic scale is often not a successful design option. For example, liquid flow in microfluidic devices physically differs from that of macro-scale size devices. Because liquid flow tends to be laminar, surface flux and surface tension start to dominate and, as a result, physical effects not seen at the macro-scale become significant at the microfluidic scale. Other differences at the microfluidic scale include, for example, faster thermal diffusion, predominately laminar flow, significant capillary forces, and significant electrostatic forces.